Tasting Notes Rated: 7

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Redbreast 1991 IWC @ The Loop 25 Year Cask #42966 53.2%

Nose: Pickled ginger and cedar with nigori saki. Rucula and celeriac. Orange water and catalan cream. There is a very subtle sweetness to the nose that is hard to put my finger on, maybe a buttered artisanal dinner roll. The empty glass has a slightly gamey smell, like elk jerky or rack of lamb.

Palate: Dark meat turkey with a massive helping of stuffing. Celery and onion, cubed bread soaked in broth, fresh parsley and thyme. Bit of yodelehihoo – a ricola lozenge. Robust peach black tea.

Rating: 6 (Ryan) 7 (Shane) / 10 – This is an amazing spirit. I can’t find a single flaw. Except at the end of the day, I just think I wouldn’t reach for it all that often. It’s just a touch off from what I prefer. So this is a rating for my palate. If you are into herbal, this is your bottle, easily an 8, even a 9. Something to be treasured.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Redbreast Celtic Whiskey 1997 1st Fill Sherry Butt #42884 20yr 58.2%

Nose: Bit-O-honey and sugar babies, malt balls and fudgie the whale. There is something fundamentally different about old timey candy. Maybe the nostalgia of youth, or less high fructose corn syrup? Then the clean nose wrinkling vibe of dove hand soap bar. On an empty glass an explosion of cardamom and lemon grass.

Palate: Orange honey stick, hazelnut brittle, tropical fruit flavored soft fudge. Those sherry fruit notes I so love, ultra ripe figs and candied pecans. Then the Redbreast spirit comes through, a touch of bitter wood, like roasted green bell pepper flavored with celery salt flowing into huge tannic wood notes.

Rating: 7 (Shane) 6 (Ryan) / 10 – Blind I would have guessed this is a bourbon and absolutely love the interplay between the fruit and the pot still spirit.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Redbreast 19 years 2000/2019 Sherry Cask #21316 59.3%

Nose: Your classic big sherry nose. Date cakes & caramelized figs. Tootsie roll. Pralines and cream. And a whooping cherry cola brownie. Probably not a thing. But it sounds pretty good. Let’s make it happen people. a slightly astringent note which I’ve come to associate with redbreast single casks that Ryan and I now think of as celeriac.

Palate: Fennel and endives salad with grapefruit supreme and shavings of parmesan with fresh cracked black peppercorn. The sherry plays background orchestra and isn’t first fiddle. And ends on a wood smackero on the way out.

Rating: 6 (Ryan) & 7 (Shane) / 10 – Herbal and bitter and fruity and delicious. While I don’t usually swing whole hog on this side of the fence, today, I’m grooving with the punches.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

George T. Stagg BTAC 2020 UK Release 65.2%

Nose: Raw and intense oak, vanilla and brown sugar. My daughter thinks it smells like peaches cooked in maple syrup. Technically she said stone fruits (proud papa moment) and then I asked her to elaborate. I always find Stagg has a note of dark cherries and this holds to the party line. Allspice and mint tobacco. They opened a shisha shop down the road and I often smell the flavored tobacco on the boardwalk. A base camphor note that approaches carob. Every time I smell this, I feel like it should come with a track record of cicadas.

Palate: Tonight this tastes wonderful. First off, it freaking burns. And I literally want to open my own bar called cask strength and most of my friends tease me that if it isn’t over 60% I might find it vapid. But dang 2020 is punchy tonight. The heat radiates mingling with the taste and it works. Intense madagascar vanilla. Cinnamon strudel. Slightly burnt buttermilk pancakes which had a heavy hand of baking soda. Cherries and more cherries. Cola concentrate. I like how well it coats my entire mouth without being goopy. The finish is herbal and even though I know the rye content is low, it plays its part.

Rating: 7 / 10 – GTS is without question the least subtle and most intense of the BTAC. As a woodophile, I can jive with it. I definitely prefer 2020 over 2019 & 2018.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Redbreast 14 Year Small Batch D 58.9% for Bounty Hunter Wine & Spirits

Nose: Without question the most complex nose of the series. Bold vietnamese cinnamon. The sweet heat and carnality of honey mustard ribs. Hazelnut, which is basically my bane after being food poisoned on Nutella, but just fits.

Palate: Intensely oak forward, with cabinet spices and white pepper. Dried trail mix with milk chocolate chips. Crisp Bosc pears and vanilla.

Rating: 7 / 10 – I enjoy how different these blends are, and yet how much DNA they share. This is perhaps the most interesting of the four, but I found myself reaching for batch C more often.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Redbreast 14 Year Small Batch C 59.1% for Blackwell’s Wines & Spirits

Nose: My kind of breakfast. Cinnamon latte with crushed cardamom. Banana bread with chopped walnuts and pepitas of dark chocolate. Sawdust from a hot saw. After resting a touch of spearmint blossomed. Even thirty minutes later, it still leads with a boozy burn.

Palate: Chocolate covered cherries and dried blueberries. Nuttiness. The spiciness of the oak almost reminds me of cayenne. A big sharp tonic note, nearly quinine, which I really love. For years I had schweppes indian tonic in the fridge as my drink of choice. I would still have liters of it if drinking that much tonic didn’t mess with my stomach. Then herbal notes that remind me of Armagnac, specifically tarragon.

Rating: 7 / 10 – Now this is yum. A sherry forward and complex pour that brings me back to all those elements I love from Redbreast 12 Cask Strength releases.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Redbreast 21 Year 2020 Release (New Box) 46%

Nose: It’s a shy nose, which requires coaxing. Cinnamon honey graham crackers. Toffee. Dry dusty cardboard. A strong smell of crushed cardamom pods. And perhaps a shake of nutmeg. An herbal note, approaching pine, that I don’t remember from the early releases.

Palate: The place and time I try a whisky is often transformative. Julie and I took the kids to an old as methuselah pub in Dublin for an early supper. It was full of grey hairs, laughing and playing the fiddle and the spoons, cheering each other on with taunts. Bangers and mash, and a nice whisky. It was the first time I tried a pour of the 21 and I was flattened. A level of depth and elegance I had yet to experience for an Irish whiskey. Sherry potstill in a tux. Roll it forward a few years and I’ve popped one of the new ones. Still absolutely delicious, but quite different. Closer to the 27 in profile. The mentholated vibe of ruby port which I didn’t expect. Green apples and under-ripe honeydew melon. Almond and hazelnut vanilla granola. Muted are the big sherry notes, no dominant figs or dates, although there is a nice sweetness. And the oak is present but dialed back.

Rating: 7 / 10 – While the first Redbreast 21 release was a mind bending experience for me, this doesn’t hit my palate with the same kapow. It’s quite solid and has my complete respect. I’m glad to have the bottle. But I might start hunting an older batch to check my memory.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Lous Pibous 1995 Cask #144 Pick by Reid for L’Ecantada

Nose: All star nose. Grenadine syrup, star of anise, bourbon soaked cherries. The brûlée part of the creme brûlée without the cream. I guess that is basically smoked rock candy?!? Or those bright red cinnamon glazed apples. Touch of barbecue.

Palate: Sweet warmth. Licorice, cinnamon buns and baklava. Instantly followed by a pucker, tart red plums and balsamic vinegar. And a bit of burnt salted caramel. Such a great balance of tart and sweet. It is thinner than the nose implies but is quite delicious when you take your time.

Rating: 7 / 10 – As long as you don’t let the nose set your expectations for syrupy goodness, this bottle is a delight. It isn’t a small sipper though, which is tough at these sample sizes. A touch more concentrated and it would be truly special.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Whistler 7 Year Bourbon + Oloroso Cask Strength Batch 1 58%

Nose: The glass sat across to the table from me for 45 minutes while I got sucked in by one more work thing. It has a lovely arm’s-length nose. Warm woods and a sweet spice. And then as I approach, an explosion of summer berry medley. A nice tartness to the nose once it sits, full on tangerine or key lime. It still has a sharp alcohol layer, which isn’t particularly enticing, but I can sniff past it if I don’t agitate the glass too much.

Palate: Biting right into a navel orange, peel and all. Try it and chew some time. It’s a fun experience. Super juicy but also has that bitter foundation. Definitely lots of cran-raspberry. I drank gallons of ocean spray as a kid. My blood is probably 2% cran-raz. Hint of sulfur, but I’m super sensitive and I doubt many would notice it. Just adds to the flavor. Then a wave of heat like ginger or white peppercorn. The wood is quite lovely, with a foundation of oak spices.

Rating: 7 / 10 – Blind sample. This is ridiculously good, but I’m in a super bad mood which makes scoring hard. Going to stop at a single taste. Drinking in a bad mood is lame. I went back to it a week later and liked it so much I found a bottle of batch 01 that had been collecting dust for a discount. The shop owner emailed me to see if I wanted them 2 for 1 as they weren’t selling. I now own 6. =)

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Domaine de Bouillon 1982/2017 47.2% for Darroze

Nose: Mexican street corn with a light dusting of cotija, tobacco, and peach black tea. I was hanging in Armagnac recently and they were showing me jars filled with unripe mirabelle plums and young armagnac, maturing for a couple seasons. Unripe Apricots. Looking forward to the pairing. I can smell the sulfur, but it’s not freaking me out yet. But instead plays out as black canned olives. There is a lovely floral layer hiding behind all the big notes, lilacs and violets.

Palate: Heavy wood. Like an ogre’s club. That peach black tea is very much present. Sulfur is present, but I am fighting through it. The palate is syrupy, and reminds me of the fruit concentrates my grandmother had and would pour into sparkling water. She preferred cassis, I liked grossielle, and this palate is closer to the dark cherry spectrum. This is such an action packed mouthful.

Rating: 7 / 10 – I like big oak and a powerful pour and this qualifies on all fronts.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Springbank 8 Year Vintage 2001 55.3%

Nose: A balanced layer of smoke and limestone. Redskin Spanish peanuts, which is funny because I haven’t seen these once since moving to Spain 4 years ago. Caramelized goat cheese and microgreens. Pink grapefruit supremes. A classic Springbank oceanside parking lot; sea mist on hot tarmac. I’ve (Ryan) been on a journey to figure out what the core DNA is for Springbank on the nose, tonight it’s the sassafras in a really good root beer soda. We are kicking off a 50 sample long Springbank tasting for the next few months, so we’ll see if this holds up.

Palate: Super intense cedar and packing tape. I loved those boxes from which we’d drink nigori sake so much Julie bought me some for the holidays. They just take all the flavors up a notch. A rock hard piece of Bazooka Joe’s bubble gum from last halloween, complete with the cartoon. Fillings be damned. Sushi ginger. Stale tea biscuits. Green apple skins. Finish is crab apples, and long finish goes cardboard and cacao nibs.

Rating: ? / 10 – simple and what I’m beginning to be afraid might become eponymous, a hippopotamus of a Springbank. In all the best ways. I often wished the Springbank 10, my favorite of all core line bottles in Scotland, was available at a higher proof. This is what I was imagining.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Chateau de Gaube 1964 43,2% for Darroze

Nose: Freeze dried strawberries dipped in espresso laced fudge. Tobacco leaf and the ephemeral smell of a cigar smoked out in an open field. My grandparents had a well loved country home and orchard a few hours from Paris. I can barely remember the house itself as mami would kick me out of it the minute I was awake and told me to come back before the sun set. There is an old farmhouse smell that is hard to describe. Aged wood. Wool. Preserved flowers bouquet and drying fruit from the orchard. Baking brownies with walnuts. And then the fruit pops again. Bright green apples. Not just sweet, but a tart that wrinkles my nose.

Palate: Almonds and pate a choux. Wood tannins and the aftertaste of tobacco. Quince and unripe pear. Lime peel. Lavender slowly transitioning into Moroccan mint.

Rating: 7 / 10 – What a nose. And a beautiful palate. But I swear they belong to different spirits. The nose harkening back to older whisky, the palate to an elegant herbal cognac.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Springbank 20 Year 1997/2017 Sherry Hogshead Cask #108 48.9% for Whisky Broker

Nose: A Turkish picnic while sitting in the hills of Capadocia. I wandered the fairy chimneys and slept inside caves for a few nights in the summer of 2000. The mosquitoes were so brutal we had to fill the cave with smoke just to get some sleep. In the evening, a hot warm wind would blow in from across from the hills and we’d nibble on purchases from the market. Dates, figs, dried sulfured apricots and candied walnuts. Hard boiled eggs and a salted hard cheese. Pistachio baklava. Hiding behind the sherry are bandaids and Springbank funk.

Palate: This is the dark side of sherry and oak. Heavy roasted coffee. Bitter chocolate. Goji berries. Tom called it oily and nailed it. The taste of fireworks on the air after a huge show. The eau-de-sulfur lingers but is not as intense as I was worried it would be from the nose. Cracked black pepper. Chewing tobacco. Like walking through a damp forest after recent rain.

Rating: 7 (Shane & Rich & Rachel) 8 (Tom) 5 (Rohan) / 10 – This manages to sit on the acceptable side of sulfur pushing me down to a 7 and Tom upwards. Bet you his mom fed him hard boiled eggs every day at lunch. I love the dry oak mouthfeel, the punch and the touch of bitterness. A classy pour.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Clynelish 24 Year 1996 Bourbon hogshead 54.9% for Whiskynerds

Nose: My daughter has become obsessed with making Lassi’s. A wonderful pairing of tartness, spices and fruit. We like a blend of cardamom and the tiniest drop of cumin. Peaches or mango or pineapple. And a goat or greek yogurt. While I prefer honey if we need to sweeten, she is all about the cane. And to finish, a couple grains of sea salt. A sweet-tart spice hit. I really love the mineral waxiness of this era of Clynelish.

Palate: Hot honey and lemon. With a sliver of ginger. The perfect remedy for a sore throat. Grape juice. Banana peels. White tea. Kumquat. Peach scones on wax paper. The waxiness is the base note upon which everything else builds.

Rating: 7 / 10 – It’s easy to see why this era Clynelish has such a following. Good pick lads.

Rating 7/ 10
Categories
Authors

Gautier XO Pinar Del Rio Cigar Blend 41.2%

Nose: A big intense red grape bomb. And yet it doesn’t come off like a child’s treat but somehow carries a confident maturity. Honey fried figs with a dash of port. And a sprig of rosemary. What a concentrated opening.

Palate: From the nose I fear a jolly rancher. But it is pure elegance. Dried apricots and soft cherries. Dates of the drier persuasion. Almonds, served with a very mild young cheese and a dab of spiced compote. The gentle blanket of oak spices. And on the tip of the finish, a lick of garden herbs ending on the ghost of mint.

Rating: 7 / 10 – I found this sample in a mini market next to Smirnoff and Jack Daniels, and grabbed it for the fun packaging. Low expectations to put it mildly. I rarely give cigar blends much credence, but to be straight up… I would easily pair this with pipe tobacco. I typically veer towards the more neurotic, but even I can doff my cap for an artful blend. Chapeaux. And I went onto LMDW and bought a full bottle right away and opened it the day it landed. Can’t wait to pour this for friends.